A giant leep for mankind

             The legendary US astronaut described himself as a "white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer."-the first human to set foot on the moon- Neil Armstrong, has died following complications from a cardiovascular surgery. Armstrong underwent cardiac bypass surgery earlier this month in Cincinnati, for  blockages in his coronary .He had celebrated his birthday on Aug 5.

                 Giving accolades to Armstrong as a "reluctant American hero" his family said :"We are heartbroken to share the news that Neil Armstrong has passed away.Neil was our loving husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend."

“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,” Planting his feet on the lunar surface ,he radioed back these words which remain immortalized in the history of the most gorgeous quotes scripted in any language over the world.

This was the most daring and “a tender moment” of the 20th century’s scientific expeditions where “he delivered a moment of human achievement that will never be forgotten.

Unlike other hard-partying matinee idols -astronauts of the time-Armstrong was "a spiritual neuter." He did not revel in his accomplishment. He believed that a man should be recognized not for one piece of fireworks but for the ledger of our daily work . Like an avadhootha he said " We're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream." .He remained largely retreated from the limelight to the tranquility of his 19th-century farmhouse. He raised cattle and corn and enjoyed his grandchildren ,shying away from the press-men.

As commander of the Apollo 11 mission Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the rock-strewn plain near the south-western shore of the Sea of Tranquility with his fellow astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin following, on July 20, 1969. Apollo 11 took four days to complete the nearly 250,000-mile (400,000 kms) journey. The moonwalk in the fine and powdery surface where lunar gravity is one sixth that of Earth’s, lasted two hours and 19 minutes-collecting samples, conducting experiments and taking photographs while, Michael Collins, piloted the command ship in the orbit about 60 miles above. During two and a quarter hours on the surface, the two astronauts collected almost 48lb [21.75kg] of rock and soil samples and planted the US flag.

The Soviet-American space war that began on Oct. 4, 1957, with the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1 culminated in the Apollo 11 mission. In the turbulent 60’s ,both domestically and internationally, President John F. Kennedy had committed the nation “to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.” True to his words it was accomplished with more than five months to spare.

Armstrong was born Aug. 5, 1930, in the small town of Wapakoneta, on a farm in Ohio. His father was a state auditor and they moved every few years to a new Ohio town while Neil was growing up.He took his first airplane ride at age 6 and took a passion with aviation . He was licensed to fly at 16, before he got his driver's license.

                   He finished high school at Wapakoneta. He went to Purdue University as an engineering student on a Navy scholarship. His college years were interrupted by the Korean War, in which Mr. Armstrong was a Navy fighter pilot who flew 78 combat missions, He took his master's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Southern California. Soon after his graduation, He married Janet , a student in home economics from Evanston whom he met earlier , in January 1956.The newlyweds moved to California, where Mr. Armstrong had been hired as an experimental test pilot for the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, the forerunner of the NASA. They had two sons, Eric and Mark, who survive. A daughter, Karen, died of an inoperable brain tumor in 1962. The couple were divorced in 1994. In 1999, Mr. Armstrong married Carol Knight, a widow 15 years his junior. They lived in Indian Hill, a suburb of Cincinnati.

A veteran of the Korean War, he joined the Nasa astronaut corps in 1962. and his first space flight was as command pilot of the Gemini 8 mission in 1966. Apollo 11 was Armstrong's last trip to space, and he left NASA in 1971 to become a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati. He kept a low profile after his astronaut years and remained heavily indoor.

His family called him “a reluctant hero who always believed he was just doing his job.”Aldrin said he and Armstrong were not prone to free exchanges of sentiment.

              Armstrong came out from the hermitage and waded into the public eye in 2010, voicing sharp disagreement with President Obama for cancelling NASA’s programme taking up moon sojourn.

He remained an advocate of aviation and exploration throughout his life and never lost his boyhood wonder of these pursuits,” his family said in the statement.

President Obama, in a statement from the White House, said, “Neil was among the greatest of American heroes.”

Amstrong believed that the important achievement of Apollo was a demonstration that humanity is not forever chained to this planet, and our visions go rather further than that, and our opportunities are unlimited.

The moonwalk ended several myths about the moon worship and also raised several eyebrows on its legitimacy.

"The next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink," the family said.

Security for a larger tomorrow

The most complex but flawless touch down of ‘Curiosity’, the inter planetary mission of US on Martian surface, heralded as ‘the engineering miracle’ marks ,a fete of outstanding achievement in robotic spaceflight and is a matter of pride for the whole world. The car-sized, one-ton, six-wheeled rover has descended at its targeted destination about 6.2 miles from the foot of Mount Sharp, three miles from the floor of Gale Crater located near the planet's equator in its southern hemisphere, shortly after 10.30pm Pacific time on Sunday (0530 GMT) .

The landing moments were tortuous for the NASA staff and were christened as the ‘seven minutes of terror’mission control engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles were greatly relieved as the nuclear-powered rover fulfilled its eight-month journey traversing more than 350 million miles (57 crore km) with a speed of 13,200 miles per-hour (21,243 kilometers per hour), ie 17 times the speed of sound.

"I can't believe this. This is unbelievable," Allen Chen, the deputy leader of the rover's descent and landing team was quoted as saying. The blue shirts at NASA believe that the feat stands out unique in the history of robotic spaceflight, and is the harbinger of a new era in inter planetary exploration. President Barack Obama hailed the accomplishment as a historic "point of national pride."

The landing was a major initial hurdle for the project. In the final stage of the wheels down, the spacecraft fired up eight retrorockets to slow its descent, before its "sky crane" lowered the 900kg (1,984lb), to the ground on nylon ropes. Close to the ground, the vessel was slowed down further by a giant supersonic parachute. The rover was grounded at 1.5mph landing on its six wheels. Within seconds the rover beamed its first images back to Earth, greatly relieving the engineers at the mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.

The two-year and $2.5 billion Curiosity project is NASA's first astrobiology mission since the Viking probes of 1970s. Rover, the one-ton, six-wheeled, nuclear powered vehicle cost Rs.13,750 crores and is regarded as the first full-fledged mobile science lab sent to another planet. After the excruciating “seven minutes of terror “the rover transmitted a picture, relayed by another Mars orbiter called Odyssey, showing one of Curiosity's wheels on the planet's surface.

It all went squeaky clean ,perfectly timed and exquisitely executed.
Curiosity is the mission to find the presence of life on the pink planet. Curiosity powered by radioactive plutonium and lithium-ion batteries will over the next 687 Earth days(98 weeks) – or one Martian year –scout around the 154 Km wide ancient Gale crater lying close to the Mars equator .It will collect rocks and soil from the shallow sides of the mountain with its robotic arm having a scoop and drill and examine for the geological tips that could establish that the planet was once habituated.

Five years back on the triumph of ‘Phinix’ ,the NASA scientists proclaimed that the mission was the forerunner for the human footing on Mars. This triumph is also to be viewed in the same vein. Recently India had great strides in the Chandrayan mission. India also aims at missions for Mars. This NASA victory shall be an impetus for the Indian scientists. As such this victory is a great leap forward by mankind which will accentuate the efforts to frame a new world order based on collectivism and peace.

surprises are where discoveries come from-Signature of water on Mars

            The other day I was at the small apartment of my cousine brother who is a flourishing practitioner of the esoteric art in connection with a horoscope checkup of a distant relative whose daughter was having 'Apaharam of Chovva'.(the goggle of Chovva)

            It was only 8 'O'clock in the morning.The corrider of his consulting room comprising a portion of the apartment is already chocked with people coming from the distant localities. As an air of hushed silence was thickening,obviously bored I turned to the interior pages of the days newspaper.My eyes struck on to the short right-up on Mars by a burgeoning journalist Mr.Sabu George.The young reporter says " The news now is that the Scientists have acknowledged the presense of an ocean on Martial surface of a period as far back as 400 crore years.Scientists believe that 400 crores years back the temperature on Mars must be so high that the fluid state of water could have been maintained.300 crores of years ago a meteoir struck on Mars that led to the formation of an ocean by the melted ice on the martian poles."

Occasionally a lean lady attendant would peep her face from the half opened door and yell out the names of the people who have reserved themselves for the holy interview.Although she best knew my relation with her master,She carried a nonchallent air around her and would not allow me any concession.

The manthras from inside can be heared out.I can hear my cousine detailing on the good and evil on the position of Mars on the defferent houses.

Astrologically, Mars is the synonym for aggression, sexuality, energy, strength, ambition, and impulsiveness. The terms martial, martial law, martial arts,police,defence are all derived from Mars. Mars is the passionate impulse and action, the masculine aspect, discipline, will-power, and stamina.Mars lights a fire under our passions, and then propels us like an ignited rocket toward our goals.

In Greek Mythology, Mars is Ares, the lord of bloodlust. Ares means war. Ares comes from the Greek word Ara, which means destruction and revenge, bane, ruin, curse, imprecation. Ares’s half-sister Athena is also a war deity, but then she symbolised strategic warfare. Mars is associated with Tuesday, and in Romance languages the word for Tuesday often resembles Mars. Mars has two satellites, Phobos and Deimos, who were mythologically his companions in war. In Roman Mythology, he is the Roman god of war, born to Juno and Jupiter. Mars is the husband of Bellona and the lover of Venus. Mars makes widows of women as he is the war lord and his actions create widows.

The mantras were coming in from the closed door in subdued and faint tone of the guru of the occult medicine.

Transit Mars causes economic problems in the second house(Vithe Vithakshaya ) , professional rise in the third( Aye Brathurdwishad upagathau sthana manadi labham ) , in the fourth and the fifth fear of misery ( Atha suhrudputrage klesha bheethim ) , in the seventh health hazards( Kame rogan ), in the eighth loss of money, mentaltension, health problems, unnecessary wanderings ( Kurvanthipranasandeham sthan bramsam dhanakshyam ) and in theTenth impediments ( bhaume bhangam dishathi dasame ).

My cousine was retired from an Intelligense organisation of the defence forces who was badly debilitated in an accidence and remained in a hospital for more than a couple of years.In the dredgery of the hospital stay he fell himself in to learning of this occult practise.He had a good certification from an University of eastern culture.When discharged ,he came back to our home town and put up a consultation and the profession soon flourished.

Sabu George explains that the website on European Space Agency gives more solid proof than that hitherto were available on the presence of water on Mars. The greater portion of the ocean water which remained for 10 lakh years must have evaporised and the rest went beneath the surface as frozen ice.Vlodak Kofman is quoted that the chances of life on Mars though scarce cannot be ruled out altogether e.

The clients were getting thick .As there was not much to do in the holiday ,I was in no hurry,I waited for my turn although I had all rights to sneek in to his room.

Public curiosity was sparkled in 1996 by a team of scientists when they announced that a meteorite believed to have come from Mars contained what might be the residue of ancient microbes.The key to understanding whether life could have evolved on Mars, many scientists believe, is understanding the history of water on the planet.

"Mars is giving us some surprises," Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona is getting philosophical just like Mars had been to my relative astrologer.He quips "We're excited because surprises are where discoveries come from."

The scientists guiding dictum and the first rule on his search for life on a distant and unexplored world is, "Follow the water!" Does Mars have water? Is Mars Habitable? These questions have been asked many times.

Percival Lowell (1855-1916), a distinguished US astronomer of the early twentieth century, established the Lowell Observatory in 1894 at Flagstaff, Ariz to search for signs of intelligent life on Mars.He authored three books claiming that he had discerned an immense network of canals through his telescope which could only have been conceived and executed by intelligent Martians in an effort to save their home planet from drying out. But these were disputed as optical illusions.

Editor Charles H. Smith's of Alfred Russel Wallace's book Note: "For many years one of Wallace's least remembered books, Is Mars Habitable? is increasingly being recognized as one of the first examples of the proper application of the scientific method to the study of extraterrestrial atmospheres and geography--that is, as one of the pioneer works in the field of exobiology."

---

Continued to page 2

---

Continued from page 1

Modern Findings

In 1971, the close range photographs on Mars from the Mariner 9 showed that there were no canals, but the photos did reveal what look like dry riverbeds and alluvial channels formed by water in the past. The Mariner flights of fifty years ago were unable to demonstrate whether Martian water exists or not, but the bleak craters and landscape were thought to be extremely hostile to plausible presense of life on Mars.

New expeditions today suggest that Mars did indeed once contain water — and may still have huge quantities of water on the Red planet.Recently released photos from NASA's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HIRISE) instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have hinted at the presence of water on Mars.

In 2004, the Mars rover Opportunity's Mössbauer spectrometer showed that some rocks contain the mineral jarosite, which is also found here on Earth. This hydrous sulfate of potassium and iron seems to be strewn over an alkaline Martian plain where sulfates and clays are plentiful. What's so interesting about jarosite? Scientists have concluded that it can only form in the presence of water, but requires dry conditions for its preservation.

Contrary to the initial results of the Viking mission of 1976, which suggested acidic soil, the recent Phoenix lander measured the pH of the soil to be alkaline, with a pH between 8 and 9. The principal investigator for Phoenix, Peter Smith, noted that the pH of Mars soil is similar to that of sea water on Earth. The Phoenix lander also sent back unequivocal evidence of near-surface water ice.

The Mars Express

The European Space Agency’ Mars Express spacecraft has discovered “large volumes of water ice” hiding only 20m underground the red planet’s surface, in the Phlegra Montes mountain range. ESA says that everything points out at the presence of large underground glaciers in this mountain range. They believe that, if confirmed, this water could be used in future human missions.

"Now, with the ESA and NASA probes, we are able to get images and spectral information about the composition of the rock”, said John Carter, lead researcher.

The most intriguing possibility is that Mars, when it was less than a billion years old, was warm enough for lakes and oceans of liquid water — and with that, the possibility of life. The planet’s landforms offer compelling evidence for flowing water: immense canyons and channels, dried-up river deltas.

Some scientists have suggested that rare catastrophic floods carved the landforms, either in the aftermath of an impact by an asteroid or comet or by underground water — melted by residual volcanic warmth — bursting to the surface.

Mars Express is a space exploration mission being conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA). The Mars Express mission is exploring the planet Mars, and is the first planetary mission attempted by the agency.

Mars Express was launched on June 2, 2003 from Baikonur with a Russian Soyuz-Fregat rocket . It consists of an orbiter and the lander "Beagle 2." and is in its orbit since 25 December 2003 sending back a treasure house of valid scientific data and high-resolution images of the martian surface .Mars Express will be in operation till 2012; a further extension to 2014 will be assessed this year.

Mars have two moons(flybys) namely Phobos and Deimos .Phobos is the larger of Mars' moons. It is an oblong shaped moon measuring 27 X 21 X 19 km. It orbits Mars with a period of 7.3 hours, less than a Martian day. This makes the moon appear to rise in the west and set in the east. Unlike other missions Mars Express can fly close to Phobos and could boost additional experements on the Mars to find the presence of life.

Astronomers knew that Mars possessed polar ice caps, but early attempts at chemical analysis suggested only that the northern cap could be composed of water ice, and the southern cap was thought to be carbon dioxide ice.

The Mars Express has found deep water ice deposits as well as carbon dioxide on the planet's south cap too .The observations with Omega instruments showed that hundreds of square kilometres of permafrost' surround the south pole. Permafrost is water ice, mixed into the soil of Mars, and frozen to the hardness of solid rock by the low Martian temperatures. This has led the researchers to believe the presence of life on Mars.Presence of hydrated clay minerals and Phyllosilicates on Mars clearly indicates that water was present on the Planet. Mars Express orbiter have indicated the presence of life-essential minerals on a number of places on the planet.

In May, another Mars Express instrument, the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS), will begin collecting data, looking for water underground.

NASA

Scientists at the NASA Mars rover robot ' Opportunity', announced that they have found "the single most powerful piece of evidence" yet that water once flowed abundantly on the Martian surface.Opportunity rover discovered a mineral vein running along the rim of a huge crater called Endeavor.Opportunity has already found iron and magnesium minerals that on Earth are known to form in water.The Scientists at 'Opportunity 'believe that the calcium sulfate they discovered must have been formed by water after a huge object from distant space crashed onto the surface, gorged out of the crater, and "rising groundwater" transformed the crystal calcium and sulfur into gypsum.

"When you find rocks on Earth that are rich in zinc, they typically formed in a place where you had some kind of hydrothermal activity going on.This is a clue that we may be dealing with a hydrothermal system here."

This is excellent news for the exploration and colonization of our neighbour, as water would be one of the crucial elements to keep the bases and colonies alive.

*********************

I can hear my cousine chanting a sloka to his attentive customer :
Dharani Garbha Sambhootham
Vidyut Kanchana Sannibham
Kumaram Shakthi Hastham cha
Mangalam Pranamamyaham
This moola sloka(root manthra) if recited 108 times daily is a guarantee against all afflictions arising from Mars.

Links

Defenitions from www.freedictionary.com
www.freedictionary.com
www.mars.jpl.nasa.gov on water and life
www.answers.com
Alfred Russel Wallace's
www.blogs.discovermagazine.com
www.topnews.co.uk
www.nytimes.com
www.space,com
www.sfgate.com
www.digitaljournal.com
www.gizmodo.com.au
www.starryskies.com

---

---